In the manufacture of keys, it is known to bring a clamp mounted key and a cutter, for example, a rotary cutting blade, into operative engagement with each other to form notches in the edge of the key. The cutter moves, relative to the key, towards and away from the key to cut a notch and also parallel to the edge of the key while the cutter is spaced away from the key to position the cutter to move inwardly to cut another notch in the key.
A particular problem associated with key cutting concerns the cutting chips formed by the cutting operation. The chips range in size from relatively discrete pieces down to fine particles in the form of dust. However, for convenience, this application will use the term "chips" generically to cover the full range of sizes of such particles.
These cutting chips present a very significant problem associated with the cutting operation. The chips accumulate quite rapidly into a pile of debris which is extremely messy and which extend over a relatively wide area since the chips are thrown out with a relatively high velocity. Thus, the chips constitute a very significant mess which must be cleaned up periodically.
Also, chips affect reliability of the key cutting operation itself. The keys are very precisely positioned within the clamp to assure perfect positioning of each edge notch. If a chip thrown out from the cutting operation gets into an empty clamp located an another station of the apparatus where the key has been removed, that chip would cause the subsequent key placed in that clamp to be misaligned, resulting in a rejected key. Moreover, these chips contaminate the machinery at adjacent stations. The smaller chip particles might be sucked into air valves and the like at these other stations. Also, these chips represent a safety hazard to an operator in the vicinity of the apparatus, particularly if the chips are thrown into the operator's eyes.
The problem of chip removal has been recognized heretofore. Until now, the problem has been partially solved with an apparatus as shown in FIG. 1. In accordance with this prior, partial solution a housing is placed around the cutting blade so as to enclose most of it and a vacuum tube has been provided for removing chips which collect in the housing.
However, this prior arrangement, while satisfactory up to a point, has not solved the problem. In this prior art arrangement, the open area at the front, in the vicinity where the cutting blade engages the chip is still relatively wide open and a very significant volume of chips are thrown out at that area. Quantitatively, the prior arrangement does collect a majority of the chips, perhaps 80-90% of the chips. However, the remaining 10-20% of chips have still caused considerable problems, requiring at least a daily clean up of the area.
Thus, there exists a need for improvements for more efficiently and effectively removing chips which are created during a key cutting operation.